Texas lets you hang board and paint tomorrow. The margin is won at the finish level

Texas does not license drywall contractors and it does not license painters. There is no state exam, no board, no application and no fee. The Occupations Code builds hour ladders for electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians and irrigators, and board hangers, tapers and painters are simply not on the list. You can be quoting work this week.

That freedom moves the whole contest somewhere else. When the state is not deciding whether you are good enough, your proposal is. Two lines in that proposal decide whether a Texas drywall or paint job makes money: the one that names the level of finish, and the one that defines what ready to paint means on this job.

Drywall and paint sit on the same page because the same outfit usually does both, or subs one to the other. The argument between a taper and a painter about who owns the last imperfection is the same argument a general contractor will run at you, and it is winnable in writing before anyone opens a bucket.

Here is what actually gets you on site in Texas, the federal certification that pays for itself on old housing, how each trade is priced, and the clauses that keep the money on your side of the table.

Four things get you on site, and a state exam is not one of them

The city registers whoever stands at the permit counter. Under a general contractor that is the GC, the inspection is called on the GC's permit, and the city has no reason to learn your name. It changes the day you contract straight with a homeowner for a repaint, a garage conversion or a basement finish, because then the counter is yours. The state stepped back and the permit desk stepped in, and the five big cities each answer it differently.

Read the table as good news. A drywall crew in a licensing state spends the first quarter studying for a trade exam. In Texas that quarter is available for bidding. The portal by portal detail sits in Texas city contractor registration, and the wider map of which Texas trades the state does gate is do you need a contractor license in Texas.

The certificate of insurance is the piece of paper that decides how fast you get onto a bid list. A general contractor's insurer sets the subcontractor requirements, and it asks for commercial general liability with the GC as additional insured, a waiver of subrogation, a W-9, and either a comp policy or a straight written answer about why you do not carry one. Texas already publishes a number for the trades it does license, and it makes a clean target to quote against: 16 TAC 73.40(a) puts an electrical contractor at $300,000 per occurrence, $600,000 aggregate and $300,000 products and completed operations. San Antonio asks its Home Improvement Contractors for those same three figures. Carry them and the GC's insurer has one less reason to send your certificate back. How to keep that pack current is contractor insurance certificates in Texas.

Comp is a genuine Texas choice. Labor Code s.406.002 makes coverage elective for private employers, and Texas is the only state where that sentence is true. Going without means filing DWC Form-005 between 1 February and 30 April each year, within 30 days of your first hire and within 10 days of dropping a policy, and posting the no coverage notice in English and Spanish. The arithmetic behind that decision, including what the exclusive remedy under s.408.001(a) is actually buying, is in workers comp is optional in Texas.

The federal card that buys you the old neighborhoods

This one does not come from Austin at all. It is federal, it comes from EPA, and it lands squarely on the housing stock that pays best.

Under the Renovation, Repair and Painting rule at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E, a firm paid to disturb painted surfaces in housing or a child occupied facility built before 1978 has to be an EPA certified firm, and the work has to be directed by a certified renovator. The thresholds are small: more than 6 square feet of interior painted surface in a room, more than 20 square feet of exterior surface, or any window replacement or demolition. Sanding a hallway before repainting clears 6 square feet in about a minute.

Now flip it round, because this is a competitive advantage sitting in plain sight. Dallas has whole streets of pre-war bungalows. Houston Heights, Fort Worth's Fairmount, San Antonio's near-south side and the older blocks east of the interstate in Austin are full of houses that predate 1978 and get repainted on a cycle. A paid contractor without the certification cannot quote that work. Three hundred dollars and one training day is the entire barrier, and it is a barrier that thins the field before the bids come in. A certified firm quotes the job, says in the proposal why it is certified, and charges for the containment as a line rather than eating it.

How drywall is bid, and the level that decides the margin

Drywall is priced per square foot of board hung and finished, not per square foot of floor. Take the board count off the plan, convert to square feet, and price hanging and finishing as two operations, because they are two crews with two different speeds. Add ceilings separately. Add height above eight feet separately. Add every soffit, bulkhead, return and arch as a linear foot line, because those are where the hours actually go.

Then name the level of finish, in the proposal, in writing. The Gypsum Association standard GA-214 defines six of them, and the difference between two adjacent levels is the difference between a good month and a written off one.

That last row is the whole economics of a drywall bid. Levels 1 through 4 all treat joints, fasteners and beads, which is roughly a tenth of the wall. Level 5 treats the wall. Quote level 4, then get asked for level 5 because the architect specified an eggshell enamel or the client put a window at the end of a long corridor, and you are performing a whole additional operation across the full area for a price that assumed a tenth of it.

Two habits close that hole. First, read the finish schedule and the paint spec before you price, not after, because the sheen named in the paint spec is what determines the drywall level whether or not the drywall spec says so. Gloss and severe lighting mean level 5. Second, write the level into your scope by name and reference GA-214, and put a square foot rate for the upgrade underneath it. When the request to move up arrives, it arrives as arithmetic instead of an argument.

How paint is bid, and how to write the ready to paint fight out of the contract

Paint is three separate numbers pretending to be one: surface area, coats, and preparation. Bid them as three lines.

Area is measured per square foot of surface, walls and ceilings separately, with trim, doors and frames counted as units rather than area. Coats follow the specification and the color: primer plus two finish coats is the normal spec, and a dark color over a light one, a sheen change, or a manufacturer's stated dry film thickness can add another. Name the manufacturer and the product line. A spec that says "or equal" is where a substitution fight starts, so pin the product in your own quote.

Preparation is where the money leaks, and it leaks because it is invisible on a quote that folds it into a square foot rate. Break it out: linear feet of caulk, patch counts, hours of sanding, square feet of masking, floor protection, and the cleanup. A GC who can see a prep line can approve a prep line. A GC who cannot see it assumes it was free.

That leads to the dispute that costs painters money on job after job. You mobilize, and the board is not sanded, the trim is not caulked, another trade is still working overhead, and the room is full of dust. You either stop and lose the day, or you do somebody else's prep for nothing. The fix is a definition, agreed before you priced anything.

Put this in the proposal, above your price:

Surfaces are accepted as ready to paint when gypsum board is finished to GA-214 Level 4 or the level named in the finish schedule, sanded, dust free and dry, with trim installed, caulk joints closed, and the area clear of other trades and their materials. We walk each area with your superintendent before masking begins. Work found short of that condition is remedial preparation, billed at $X per hour plus materials on a signed field ticket raised before the work starts.

Three things are doing the work in that paragraph. It names an objective standard rather than an opinion. It creates a walk, which means a moment when somebody else agrees the room is ready. And it prices the failure in advance, so remedial prep becomes a ticket rather than a favor.

You are the last trade in, and that is a pricing position

Drywall and paint live in the final stretch of the schedule, which means you inherit the slippage of every trade ahead of you and hand back none of your own. Framing runs a week late, the mechanical rough in fails an inspection, the board delivery slips, and the certificate of occupancy date holds. The compression comes out of the finish trades.

So price your duration as well as your quantity. Tie mobilization to a milestone you can verify, such as substrate accepted at the walk, rather than to a calendar date controlled by trades ahead of you. Carry a remobilization charge for a trip to a site that is not ready. And treat acceleration as what it is: overtime, a second crew or night shifts are a change in the work, not a favor, and they get priced and signed before the first extra hour is worked.

That is also the best moment to be the easy sub to schedule. A finish crew that gives the superintendent a firm date, holds it, and hands back a punch list of three items gets asked first on the next building. Being fast on the certificate pack and the field ticket is part of the same signal, and how to get in front of that superintendent in the first place is get on GC bid lists in Texas.

When the answer to a priced change comes back as a flat no, that is a negotiation with a known shape, and the moves that work are in when the GC says no to your extra.

Texas makes the owner hold money for you, on purpose

The state that will not license you will absolutely compel your customer's customer to set money aside. This is the part of Texas law written in a subcontractor's favor, and it runs on the 15th of the month.

Send the monthly notice. For each month you furnish labor or materials, a notice to the owner and the original contractor by the 15th day of the third month after that month on commercial work, or the second month on residential, under Tex. Prop. Code s.53.056, carrying the statutory warning text word for word. It traps funds: under s.53.081 the owner may withhold what is needed to pay your claim from the moment that notice lands, and under s.53.083 the original contractor has 30 days to dispute your demand or is treated as having agreed, at which point the owner pays you out of what was withheld.

Claim the ten percent. Section 53.101 makes 10% statutory retainage mandatory during the work and for 30 days after completion. It is money already reserved for you rather than a concession, and s.53.057 gives you 30 days to file the notice of claim for unpaid retainage, running from whichever comes first, your own completion or termination, or termination of the original contract.

File the affidavit on the fourth month. The lien itself goes to the county clerk by the 15th day of the fourth month after your last month of work on commercial jobs, the third month on residential, under s.53.052. Send a copy to the owner, and to the original contractor if that is not you, within five days of filing, by any method you can prove, under s.53.055. A suit to foreclose runs one year from the last day you could have filed that affidavit, on every project type, and an owner can agree in writing to stretch it to two years if the agreement is recorded before the first year runs out. The full sequence with the counting rules is Texas mechanics lien deadlines.

Run the 35 day clock. Chapter 28 of the Property Code gives an owner 35 days from a written payment request to pay, overdue amounts run at 1.5% a month under s.28.004, and those terms cannot be contracted away. When money reaches you, the tier below gets its share within 7 days.

All of that is arithmetic done on a bad day, which is exactly what software is for. The Texas lien deadline calculator takes the month you worked and counts the 15ths for you.

The homestead page you sign before the first sheet goes up

Repaints, popcorn ceiling removal and basement finishes are sold straight to homeowners, and a Texas home the family lives in is usually homestead property. When you contract with the owner directly you are the original contractor on that job, and Texas asks for one page before any labor or material is furnished: a written contract, executed before work begins, signed by both spouses if the owner is married, and filed with the county clerk in the county where the homestead sits. Under s.53.254 that page is what carries your lien rights on the house, and it has to exist before the first day rather than be added afterwards.

Treat it as a sales asset instead of paperwork. It is a signed scope, a signed price and a signed start date, collected at the kitchen table while the homeowner is enthusiastic, which is the same moment you would be asking for a deposit anyway. The lien affidavit that follows a homestead job carries its own conspicuous notice in 10 point boldface, reading THIS IS NOT A LIEN. THIS IS ONLY AN AFFIDAVIT CLAIMING A LIEN, so build both documents once and reuse them on every residential contract you sign.

Two tax lines that belong in your rate

Sales tax follows the building, not the brush. Under Comptroller Rule 3.357, repainting or refinishing an existing nonresidential building is taxable real property repair and remodeling. Painting on new construction is not, and repair and remodeling work on residential property is not. The same crew, the same paint, three different invoices, and the difference belongs in the bid rather than in a surprise assessment two years later. How to set it up so the invoice gets it right by itself is Texas sales tax for contractors.

Keep the entity in good standing, because a GC's onboarding checks. A Texas LLC files its franchise report by 15 May each year. Below the no tax due threshold, which is $2,650,000 for report years 2026 and 2027, you owe nothing and the Public Information Report is still due. Filing it takes minutes and holds your right to transact business, which is the box a vendor onboarding form is actually ticking. The detail is in Texas franchise tax for contractors.

What this costs on AEC Stack

Your business record, your certificates, your finish level scope templates, your quotes and your invoices sit in one place, with no monthly subscription. AEC Stack takes 2.5% of each invoice processed through the platform, collected on the payment due date, so the finish level clause, the ready to paint definition, the homestead contract and the notice dates cost you nothing until money moves.

Set the company up from zero at start your business. Then the only thing left is board to hang and walls to cover, and find work is where Texas projects show up before they reach the tender boards.